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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29856144">Experiments</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/'>Anonymous</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>HLVRAI - Fandom, The Borrowers - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Borrowers AU, black mesa fucked up and evil (tm), help! ive never written, i don't know anything about borrowers sorry c, i don't usually write things that are too far from the source material but bhbhbbhhbb, im writing this for a friend because he has poggers ideas, uhhhhhhhuhhuhhuhhhh idk how to even tag this, wait are beta readers actually a thing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 00:09:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,183</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29856144</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Baboom, borrowers au but with sodashipping.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The title is a work in process because idk what to call this</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tommy Coolatta/Darnold</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Anonymous</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Experiments</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>wahoo, it's a writing. please provide feedback i'm going through a writers block</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A new specimen was coming in this week. Tommy sighed, looking at the clipboard on his desk. He wasn't expecting the specimen to arrive this fast but it was here regardless. He was getting a little behind on paperwork from the last specimen but one of the main reasons he kept this job is because he enjoyed inspecting such diverse creatures. Typically he got saltwater species from the depths of the unexplored ocean but he was a little excited for today since this specimen was apparently a land animal. The only other land animal he had the opportunity to vivisect was a human but research in that field wasn't necessarily needed since humans had been doing it themselves for centuries. As he walked down the hallway towards the holding room, he shook his hands in relative excitement. New land animals weren't as common to find since humans had populated the majority of the remaining lands.</p>
<p>He swung the door open to see the typical wooden crate as normal and picked the supplied crowbar lying besides the table to pry it open. Inside there was a small cage with a cloth over it. The cage was pretty much one of those dog carriers but on a much smaller scale. He picked up the container and gently shook it. A faint yell was heard and Tommy stopped out of confusion. He didn't dare open the cage but he shined a light in the cage. The dim sliver of light showed a small creature with the likeness of a mouse. He couldn't really tell what it was because it was pressed up against the back of the container. But, it was alive and definitely awake. Tommy tilted the cage forwards and shook it slightly to loosen the creature's grasp on the cage.</p>
<p>"Come on, I'm- I'm not gonna hurt you," Tommy said, shaking the crate more aggressively which counteracted his original statement. The creature didn't budge and Tommy set the cage back down. Whatever it was it was very insistent on not coming down easily. Tommy settled for another method and opened a nearby box of small food pellets.</p>
<p>"C-come here, There's a- I  got some food for you," Tommy said, sticking the food pellet between the cage's bars while making kissy noises.</p>
<p>"It's not very polite to do that, you know," a voice quietly said. Tommy sat up and turned around, looking to the person behind him who said it. He was about to open his mouth to state that what he was doing was perfectly in line with the regulations but behind him there was only empty space.</p>
<p>"Huh?" Tommy said, looking around for the source of the noise. There wasn't anyone scheduled to be working in the other lab rooms as far as he knew. He was about to shrug it off if it hadn't spoken up again.</p>
<p>"The kissy noise. It's a little demeaning to me," The voice said, a little stronger this time. Tommy turned around to the caged creature and shined the light directly into the cage again.</p>
<p>"You can talk?" Tommy said in disbelief. The smaller creature groaned slightly and squinted at the intense light Tommy had shining directly at him.</p>
<p>"Yeah, can you stop doing that?" the creature said, referring to the direct light. Tommy didn't respond and instead quickly shoved his hand into the cage to grab the creature. He pulled it out into the light and looked. Tommy didn't get to look for that long because soon after that the humanoid creature bit his hand. Tommy swore under his breath and switched the creature between his hands.</p>
<p>"Do that again," Tommy asked, bringing the creature close to his face. The creature tilted its head slightly, wearing a confused expression.</p>
<p>"Speak."</p>
<p>"I'm not some kinda circus dog, whoever you are," the creature said, as Tommy started observing it. Well, not so much an it, but more of a him. It was pretty much a human but much smaller with the features to account for living life of such a small size. Larger ears, thinner almost paw-like limbs and of course the size were the only differences from a normal, average human. He obviously had the intelligence of a human as it could understand and respond to human speech. It was a tiny person encased in his hand. Tommy loosened his grip on the creature, not wanting to crush him.</p>
<p>He looked at the tiny creature again. If this little guy could understand human speech then it could obviously think and feel too. It was relatively obvious how the creature felt as he had bit Tommy earlier. How bizzare was that? Tommy felt a twinge of guilt in his heart. He came into this room fully expected to vivisect a creature but now he sorta felt guilty to do it especially since he was looking at him with such a petrified look of fear. He couldn't bring himself to experiment on something that so clearly feels, shows and communicates feelings and ideas.<br/>
The lives of anomalous creatures at Black Mesa never lasted more than two week before being dissected and analyzed under the microscope. The internal organs were difficult to determine without that. But, with such an exceptional specimen, Tommy couldn't necessarily let this opportunity pass. It was such a small creature too and would be easy to sneak out. Maybe if the creature was put into a more natural environment other than in the small, dark cage at the facility, Tommy would be able to learn more. He took the creature home, for research purposes.</p>
<p>"Where are we?" The creature spoke, as Tommy entered his house.</p>
<p>"Mm- my house- woah, Sunkist!" Tommy started before getting interrupted by the large golden retriever jumping up towards him excitedly. The dog calmed down and peered into the cage directly at the creature. The creature pressed himself up towards the back of the cage even more.</p>
<p>"No Sunkist! It's the- This is a friend!" Tommy said, lifting the cage above his head to avoid the dog. Sunkist ran around Tommy in circles a few times before running into another room to do whatever dogs do.</p>
<p>"That's- That's Sunkist, my dog," Tommy said, looking into the cage. Tommy went into his room, shutting the door so that there wouldn't be a chance Sunkist would try to eat the creature. Tommy shuffled around his drawers to find some gloves to protect against the creature biting him again. Then, he picked up the small creature by grabbing around his torso.</p>
<p>"Can you stop doing that?" The creature said, clearly annoyed by the constant manhandling. It was like being dropped from one of those roller coasters except there wasn't any comfort in knowing where he'd be swung next.</p>
<p>"I'm- I'm Tommy," Tommy said, smiling wide in an attempt to put the creature at ease. The creature seems to retreat into his hand, struggling and kicking to get loose. Tommy stopped smiling, figuring that the creature took it as baring his teeth.</p>
<p>"Darnold," The creature said, still trying to escape.</p>
<p>"P-pleased to meet you. What are you?" Tommy asked again, moving his hand slightly out of habit as he always moved his hands whenever speaking. Darnold once again asked Tommy to knock it off. Eventually, after almost 20 minutes of trying to escape, Darnold figured that Tommy wasn't going to eat him or dissect him...yet.</p>
<p>"We usually borrow things from human beans so I guess call us Borrowers."</p>
<p>"There's more of you?"</p>
<p>"What? N-no of course not," Darnold said, lying. Tommy squinted, most likely detecting the lie but didn't weigh more on the question.</p>
<p>"There's not many- I haven't seen any creature as s-smart as humans. At the- back at the lab," Tommy said.</p>
<p>"Did you ever ask the other specimens?" Darnold said, kicking to get loose once again.</p>
<p>Tommy frowned slightly at the comment. The majority of the specimens came in either frozen or already cold so Tommy couldn’t have known their intelligence level. In fact, Darnold was the only living specimen Tommy had that he didn’t automatically sedate. He tried to rationalize that the majority were most likely unintelligent since they were from the sea but the existence of dolphins and octopuses contradicted that.</p>
<p>“I saw the diagrams. Do you think they were in pain? When you dissected them?”</p>
<p>Tommy had never given a second thought to how Black Mesa treated their assets. It wasn’t like he enjoyed ripping creatures apart piece by piece, rather, it was quite strenuous since all the muscles and joints had to remain intact. But, he always saw the creature as something other than living. He saw them more as an intricate puzzle. His dad never questioned it so why should Tommy have? </p>
<p>“They weren’t- I used anesthetics,” Tommy said, shaking his head a bit. It wasn’t a complete lie but Tommy did use it sparingly. It was another cost tacked on if he used too much. Besides, they weren’t even sure if the specimens even felt pain. If they didn’t, it would have been a waste. And if they did, it’d only be for a little bit. That was fine, right? If he thought about this any further, he’d probably end up having a moral crisis about all the other creatures he worked on. Tommy was snapped out of his thoughts when he felt Darnold bite hard on his hand.</p>
<p>“Hey, ow, w-what was that for?” Tommy asked, transferring Darnold to his other hand and shaking the one that received the bitemark. </p>
<p>“You’re squeezing me too tight.”</p>
<p>“Oh. Uh- sorry,” Tommy said, opening the cage and putting Darnold back into it. Tommy looked at his hand, observing the amount of damage the small Borrower did. He was going to need to bandage that or else it’ll get infected. Tommy went out of the room, making sure to close the door behind him so that Sunkist didn’t torment Darnold. </p>
<p>Darnold looked around Tommy’s room, looking for possible escape routes. The clutch on the cage wouldn’t be too hard to open since it was just a simple lever one. He had to find something to pull it together because he wasn’t that strong. Eventually, Darnold figured that he could use a string from the old cloth lining the carrier cage. After wrapping the string around the two levers and configuring it in different ways, he was eventually rewarded with a crisp click sound which opened the cage. Darnold quickly slid out and onto the table, looking around for somewhere to hide when Tommy eventually came back. He opted to hide behind the dresser leg which was directly besides the door. Most beans don’t look down so he’d escape unnoticed and finally be free again. Darnold already had some sort of idea as to where the front door was as well as possible hiding places when he entered the house.</p>
<p>Tommy, as expected, opened the door and Darnold acted upon his perfect plan. It was almost perfect other than the fact he forgot about the dog. Darnold let out a yell in surprise as Sunkist went towards him. Tommy saw this and quickly resolved the situation by picking Darnold up and scolding Sunkist. </p>
<p>“Sunkist, I know you- you- want to play with your new friend but h-he’s not a chewy toy,” Tommy said, prompting the dog to go away. Tommy put Darnold back into the cage with a sigh and leaned his face against the table to get a better look at him. </p>
<p>“You a-almost got hurt there! You’re not- not hurt are you?” Tommy said in a somewhat demeaning voice. Darnold ignored Tommy’s comment and moved to the back of the cage, afraid that he’d pick him up again. He caught a glimpse of Tommy’s hand, all bandaged up with yellow creatures on the bandages. Darnold felt a little guilty for hurting Tommy a little but he figured Tommy deserved it since he kept picking him up aggressively despite his protests.</p>
<p>“H-here, I brought you some f-food and water,” Tommy said, reaching to the side of the cage to pick up some objects. Maybe this situation isn’t too bad considering that he was still in one piece and was going to get fed some food. Maybe he could even grow to tolerate and even like Tommy since he took him out of Black Mesa where he probably would have died at the hands of another scientist. He wasn’t sure what Tommy made but whatever was cooking in the kitchen smelled good. Tommy moved to open the cage but paused, considering what could happen next.</p>
<p>“You’re not going to run out, are you?” Tommy asked, looking to Darnold for an answer. Darnold shook his head and sat down, showing Tommy that he wasn’t going to try. Tommy opened the cage and placed a water bottle cap filled with water at the edge of the cage and, most disappointingly, some sunflower seeds. Darnold didn’t like Tommy anymore.</p>
<p>Tommy went to bed and Darnold did the same, figuring that he wouldn’t be able to escape without a solution to the dog problem.</p>
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